Memories.

“My memory will retain what is worthwhile. My memory knows more about me than I do; it doesn’t lose what deserves to be saved.”
    — from Days and Nights of Love and War by Eduardo Galeano.


My mother's mind is a bottomless antique chest
of old memories she likes to pull out at random.
Her companion likes to joke that
he never knows what page she's on,
because her tongue often spits out all these scattered items:
from her repressed childhood,
from her struggling homeland,
from her ex-loves.
I guess she's the one who taught me that
forgetting is the hardest thing in the world.
But I'd like to think a deep treasure of memories
allows our bodies enough space
for our hearts to swell.